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Twinkle Khanna launches new campaign on menstruation

Author and entrepreneur Twinkle Khanna, who is now turning producer with her film Padman, is campaigning to urge people to talk about menstruation. She tweeted yesterday, “No shame in menstruation. Join WaterAid India and Dasra to get talking menstruation."Padman, starring actor and Khanna’s husband Akshay Kumar, is about Arunachalam Muruganantham, the Coimbatore-based entrepreneur who revolutionised the world of female personal hygiene with his invention of a machine that produces low-cost sanitary napkins.The 53-year-old Muruganantham, who is a Padma Shri awardee and who also figured in the Time 100 Most Influential People list in 2014, said in a recent interview to Femina. “It’s amazing that Akshay Kumar, a leading Bollywood hero, will be the first to talk about women’s personal hygiene in mainstream cinema. It’s a social message that must reach the masses.”The film, being directed by R Balki and also starring actors Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor, is an adaptation of the story that Khanna wrote about Muruganantham in her 2016 book, The Legend Of Lakshmi Prasad. The chapter was titled ‘The Sanitary Man from the Sacred Land’.It’s not the first time that Khanna has written about the taboo surrounding menstruation though. Two years ago, in her blog Mrs FunnyBones, she wrote: “Point to be noted, milord: Why are sanitary napkins treated like radioactive isotopes? They are wrapped in layers of plastic and newspaper, then someone ties a string over this mysterious package and then it’s put in a bag of its own—separate from any vegetables or cereal boxes that it may contaminate by its very presence.” She went on to write, “Well, if God disapproves of this (menstrual) fluid, then he should disapprove of all body fluids. So when pundits are doing yagnas and sweating copiously in front of the holy fire, shouldn’t they also occasionally get burnt to a crisp by divine cosmic forces?”Despite voices being raised to bring the discussion around female personal hygiene to drawing rooms, the government has decided to make products such as sanitary napkins, towels and tampons costlier. These products fall under the 12 per cent tax slab of the revised Good and Services Tax (GST) rates, to be implemented from July 1.